From private school to prison: How time in jail pushed Tom Penglis into law school and towards justice reform

Tom Penglis was scared and alone. As he lay on a bed in a tiny cell at Hakea Prison, on the first of 228 nights he would spend behind bars, his anxious mind took him to the worst case scenarios as he contemplated what lay ahead. Earlier, he had arrived in a prison van with other new intakes and been strip-searched, told to shower, given a cold meal and locked in his cell. It would be six days before he received an intake pack explaining the prison’s operation but by that stage his fellow prisoners had shown him the ropes. As he awaited a transfer to the medium-security Acacia Prison, where he would serve the rest of his sentence, the 22-year-old started to talk to other inmates. More importantly, he started to listen. What emerged were devastating stories of disadvantage, intergenerational trauma, mental health crises and men denied the opportunity to rehabilitate and to, perhaps, choose a different path. Tom would leave prison almost eight months later, forever changed by the experience, and determined to make the most of his second chance. He has had access to a world nobody wants to see, and witnessed problems that, too often, nobody wants to know about. But with the backing of senior figures in the legal fraternity and the University of WA, he plans to give a voice to people from this world and fight for change on their behalf. Just how did this private school boy, the son of a senior Perth barrister who aspires to be a lawyer himself, end up behind bars? Drugs. Primarily MDMA, which the bright, talented Christ Church Grammar School student started using as a teenager. The pills became a coping mechanism during a difficult final year of school, but despite his troubles he finished with an ATAR of 98.9, guaranteeing him entry into law. “I saw that as a reason to let loose when I finished school, and that lasted for four years, when I got arrested,” he told The Sunday Times. “I was kidding myself. I didn’t expect to get caught, but I should have known, in hindsight. I was doing it for so long, it was a given.” Using had led to selling to fund his using, and this continued until three weeks after Tom, a highly functioning addict who had hidden his habit from his family, graduated from his undergraduate commerce degree at UWA. He was on a bender at Falls Festival in Fremantle when he was caught with pills. Police uncovered more drugs at his house and he was charged, and later pleaded guilty to intent to supply MDMA. “The first meeting I had with a lawyer, they said, ‘You’re not getting out of this. You’re going to jail’,” he recalled. As he waited for his day in court Tom got clean, undertook drug counselling and completed his first semester in his Juris Doctor at UWA, all with the support of his family. “The first thing they said is, ‘This is a terrible situation but we want you to be OK, and get the help you need to sort your life out’,” he said. On August 23, 2019, Tom was sentenced to 15 months jail, of which he would end up serving 7 1/2 months. After that first terrifying night in Hakea, he says his mind was put at ease by other prisoners who befriended him and explained the daily operation of the prison. He was transferred to Acacia two weeks later and shared a cell with three young Aboriginal men, who told stories about their lives and culture. These eye-opening conversations, and those he would go on to have with dozens of other prisoners, left him shocked and angry. “I knew going into it the prison system was ineffective, and I’d heard about the over-representation of Aboriginal people in jails,” he said. “But it’s another thing to go in and meet the people behind the statistics, to hear their stories and see the gross, shameful over-representation. “It’s honestly disgraceful.” Tom heard these stories in detail while working in Acacia’s resettlement office, a small department linking prisoners with support services. This involved helping inmates write parole and rehabilitation applications, getting access to drug and alcohol support, and running induction presentations. “I consistently found myself humbled by their openness and raw honesty,” he said. “It made me realise how frequently prisoners are traumatised as kids. Physically, mentally, sexually sometimes, and the issues they face — poverty, drug abuse, mental health issues — are all so prevalent. “It was really sad, if anything it galvanised me to come out and do something.” Among the heart- breaking stories was that of 19-year-old drug offender Ben (not his real name) who came to him for help in writing his parole plan. Ben had severe learning disabilities, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and could barely read or write. He had grown up in poverty with parents who used and sold drugs, was physically abused by his uncle and mentally abused by his older brother. He started stealing food because his parents were not providing him with adequate meals, and dropped out of school in Year 8 due to bullying and his troubled home life. His cousins introduced him to meth at 15. “He broke down telling me his story because he was scared of getting released from prison to the same conditions that he was in prior to his incarceration,” Tom said. “He never really had a proper chance at life and didn’t have support networks to help him rehabilitate and transition successfully back into the community upon release.” Then there was Ted, a New Zealander who had moved to Australia as a child but never became a citizen. He too was jailed for drug-related charges and deported to his country of birth, away from his support networks, because his sentence was longer than 12 months. “He was genuinely remorseful and I was positive he would have turned his life around if given the chance to stay in Australia,” Tom said. It became clear to Tom that far greater focus was needed on rehabilitation. Yes, there were truly evil offenders in prison who showed no remorse, but there were also others who he believed were traumatised, damaged and in need of help as opposed to being inherently bad people. “It’s an easy card to play, ‘This person committed a burglary and needs to be punished’,” he said. “But if you’re going to grab this person who has issues in their life, and put them in jail, let those issues fester, not address them, and release them to the same conditions they were previously ... what do you expect?” While Tom had regular visits from his dad, Steven Penglis SC, and knew he would be returning to a supportive and loving home, it was a far different story for most other prisoners. Intergenerational trauma, particularly among Aboriginal inmates, was rife. Tom met three generations of the same family during his time in Acacia. “Guys my age have kids of their own, they’re stuck in the cycle, their children are going to grow up without a father, and be normalised to the process of visiting dad in jail,” he said. The current system is shockingly ill-equipped to manage that cycle, let alone disrupt it, Tom believes. Social justice and support services are poorly resourced, and because of this, inmates are given few genuine opportunities to rehabilitate. “There is chronic underfunding, and gross inefficiencies. People don’t get the assistance they require ... and also don’t receive appropriate medical support,” he said. In addition, the conditions at the prison were “disgusting”, Tom said, recalling a particularly bad cockroach infestation that lasted months and saw the insects constantly crawling over kitchen utensils, appliances and kitchen and bathroom sinks. The Department of Justice said enhancements to support Aboriginal prisoners, including psychological support, crisis intervention, mentoring and culturally specific counselling had been introduced since April 2020 and resulted in improved engagement. The fact he is well-educated, well-connected and studying law places Tom in a unique position to advocate for change, and he is doing that through the WA Justice Association advocacy group he has recently formed with fellow UWA law students Julian Sanders, his sister Georgina Penglis, and Ciara Glennon Scholarship award winner Isabel Philip. Former High Court chief justice Robert French AC will speak at the group’s official launch tomorrow. “(During a prison visit) dad said something along the lines of, ‘Well, you should hold on to that passion and do something about it when you get out,’” Tom said. The group will include students, lawyers, and social justice organisations and focus on reducing WA’s incarceration rate, which at 325 people per 100,000 is the second highest in the country. The State’s Indigenous incarceration rate is the highest in Australia, at 3842 for every 100,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults. The WAJA wants more money and attention given to rehabilitation, reintegration and diversion programs, to improve outcomes not only for those who come into contact with the justice system but also the wider community. First on the agenda was a project to examine raising the age of criminal responsibility in WA from 10 to 14. Tom also wants to tackle the three strikes mandatory sentencing laws for burglary in WA. “You want judicial discretion to account for individual circumstances,” he said. “Instead of saying, ‘You need help’, it’s ‘Go to jail, screw your life up, then get out’. “What do they expect people are going to do then, go out and get a job? They are in prison among bad influences and it reinforces those negative behaviours as opposed to actually addressing them, and the underlying reasons for those behaviours.” Tom knows that if not for the support of his family, there is every chance he would have fallen back into drug use. His father was appalled to hear Tom’s stories during his visits to Acacia. “It was just devastating,” Mr Penglis said. “The real tragedy is that these bad conditions tend to affect a disadvantaged minority in the community, and that’s what makes it all the more egregious that nothing is being done about it.” The family was rocked by Tom’s conviction but proud to witness him turn his life around since his release in April last year. “He made a terrible decision, but it’s how you deal with those situations that really marks your character,” his father said. Mr Penglis said Tom’s story showed that no family was immune from the scourge of drugs. “It kicks you in the guts, and it was very hard to deal with, but deal with it we did ... and more to the point, deal with it Tom did,” he said. “He could walk away and do nothing about it, and get on with his life, or use the experience to shape his life, and I’m very proud that he’s decided to do the latter.” Tom, who is now 24, said his time behind bars both matured him and gave him perspective about how lucky, and privileged, he is. “I am never going to forget the people that I met, and the stories that I heard, for the rest of my life,” he said. “If there is one thing that I am sure of after my time in prison, it is that the current system of criminal justice must change.”

From private school to prison: How time in jail pushed Tom Penglis into law school and towards justice reform

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